In this final installment of The Healing Wars series, warrior Nya desperately searches for her missing sister while fighting to preserve her heritage even as the Duke of Baseer prepares to invade Geveg. Read full book review >

Continuing where The Shifter (2009) ended, book two of The Healing Wars series finds 15-year-old Nya, her sister Tali and other Takers hiding in Geveg from the invading Duke of Baseer, who plans to use them in his mysterious pain experiments. Takers heal by transferring human pain into "pynvium," but Nya shifts pain from one person to another, enabling her to use pain as a weapon. While fleeing Geveg, Nya's kidnapped by bounty hunters and transported to Baseer, where she escapes, allies with Baseeri underground fighters and discovers their leader is her uncle, making her half Baseeri. Deperate to find Tali and protect the Takers, Nya orchestrates a hair-raising plot to demolish the Duke's pain experiments. Flashing and pushing pain into her foes, determined and seemingly fearless Nya catapults through the pages like a super-charged action figure, but her first-person narration reveals inner conflict when forced to use her healing powers to injure and kill. Again, Nya confronts impossible moral choices as she fights to find her beloved sister. Relentless, gripping adventure. (Fantasy. 10 & up)Read full book review >

A teen with the power to shift pain from one person to another chooses between saving her sister's life and her principles in this first of a projected series. Orphaned when the Baseer invade and occupy Geveg, 15-year-old Nya and her sister Tali live in an oppressed world where pain is controlled by a Healer's League that trains "Takers" to transfer human pain into a substance called pynvium. The League charges to remove pain, pain merchants buy pain to enchant weapons and anyone able to "shift" pain is subject to "death, prison, maybe even experiments." Nya suppresses her shifting power until Tali and other League apprentices mysteriously disappear and a pain merchant threatens to make her a pawn in his plot to subvert Geveg. In the tradition of strong-willed adventure heroines, Nya rallies, unleashing her powers as she faces complex moral dilemmas. Her first-person narration is suffused with the agony of deciding who will live or die. Timely ethical exploration in the guise of high-action fantasy. (Fantasy. 10-16)Read full book review >